Jiyan

On 16 March 1988, five days before one of the most important Kurdish feast days (Newruz), Iraqi planes bombed the Kurdish town of Halabja with mustard gas, nerve gas and cyanide. Within a few minutes, 5000 men, women and children died through suffocation or burning. Despite the scale of the slaughter, international reactions were subdued and no severe sanctions or reprisals were taken against the Iraqi government.Jiyan is set against the background of these events. Five years after the attack, the Kurdish American Diyari returns to his homeland. He wants to set up an orphanage in Halabja. He slowly gets to know the people of the town, such as the man who has sat playing the flute day and night on a roof since he lost his wife and eight children. But most attention is focused on Jiyan, who has stayed behind alone with her nephew Sherco, a 12yearold orphan. For that reason, Sherco is determined to marry his niece. Jiyan (a popular girl’s name in Kurdistan meaning `life’) only recovers slowly from the traumatic events.Jiyan links this urgent subject to a plea to take the Kurdistan issue seriously in all its aspects. Some actors come from the bombed villages and play themselves in the film. The film has been made partly with support from the Hubert Bals Fund.